Fool's Mate
Dec 15, 2011
Fool's Mate
Author: Laura Pedersen
Publisher: CreateSpace
Pub. Date: October 2011
ISBN-13: 1463652883
Also available in a Kindle edition.
Product Description:
Twenty-eight year old Jessie Kincaid aspires to become a star investigative reporter and change the world with her work. To succeed in a cutthroat business, she follows the lead of her male counterparts by acting tough, sleeping around and drinking too much. Underneath this rough exterior beats a passionate heart, untried until Calvin Gabriel Thomas becomes her new officemate. A 30-year-old Yale-trained lawyer, he's decided to give journalism a try rather than follow in the political footsteps of his famous father, a six-term Senator from Connecticut. Josie and Calvin come from different worlds, have different styles, and hold conflicting views on whether money can be a positive force in society or is the very essence of corruption. However, it's clear that Calvin might find himself interested in Josie if she weren’t so angry, self-destructive and outspoken. Meanwhile, Josie thinks that she might have given Calvin a shot if he hadn’t gone and gotten married their first week of working together. But when Josie receives the assignment of a lifetime it’s a chance to seal her future as well as find her heart.
Idgie Says:
Snappy, witty dialogue with a fast paced story line. Never a dull moment. Jessie is a "guy" - she's tough, loose, determined to get what she wants and scares a few people. Her bosses yell at her, she yells back. She gambles, drinks too much and has no issues with office flings. She is trying her best to climb the ladder to her dream as an investigative reporter but keeps dropping a few rungs.
When Calvin becomes her office mate she's currently "grounded" to the office by some earlier shenanigans that cost the company a bit of money. By the time she's ungrounded for an assignment that is her dream....her heart might be telling her other things.
A fun, dialogue driven "romance" story set in an Atlanta news station. Easy to read with quite a few chuckles to be found.
First chapter excerpt can be found HERE.
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Please find below a great Q & A from Laura on why this particular book was self-published and what's coming up in the future!
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Why did you choose to self publish after the success of publishing from traditional houses?
Laura Pedersen: This book was a departure from what I've been writing and didn't fit with the catalogues of my current publishers. For a one-off project I didn't feel like searching for a new relationship. And not many publishers want a single project since they also succeed by building long relationships. Recent changes in technology have made it easy and practically free to put out a side project and so I simply took advantage of that.
What do you feel the pros and cons of such a move are (i.e., more editorial freedom, etc.)?
Laura Pedersen: The pros are multitude. I loved working with a designer (who did a terrific job, in my opinion) on a cover that was appealing and interesting but also conveyed to the reader what type of book this is and who might be interested in it. I've often wondered if designers are given a good description of the story since so many covers don't seem to fit the contents. The art on the hardcover edition of my novel Last Call (which is a sweet and funny love story) appears to be advertising a horror show.
Fool's Mate is slightly longer than a typical book of fiction runs nowadays and that may have been a problem for a publisher because they become married to an idea of what today's readers want regarding style, format and even length. I think that a good story is a good story. Some are short and some are long. You just want to make sure it's the storyline you're dealing with and not a case of overwriting.
I think that Fool's Mate would make a good movie -- one of those newsroom romantic comedies, but here the girl gets the good part playing the rogue reporter who uses unorthodox methods to follow the story. So rather than shop a script around Hollywood, anyone interested can just download the book for 99 cents.
The best part about this form of publishing has been that with a traditional house my books usually sell for about $12.00 and out of that I get $1.00. But you can download Fool's Mate for 99 cents, so I've been able to pass all the savings on to my readers.
Will you go back to traditional publishing after this book?
Laura Pedersen: Yes. My next book is Trains, Planes and Auto-Rickshaws, a collection of humorous essays about traveling through modern India. That will be published by Fulcrum, the same house that has done my last two books and I'm extremely happy there. They've been around for a long time, publish high quality books, have strong editing, art and marketing departments, and are terrific about working together. I probably wouldn't get that sort of attention at a large house.
